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“…the two hours’ traffic of our stage.”

Tonight, you will do some additional analysis about word choice in the prologue of Romeo and Juliet, but first please do the following activity. You will need your copy of the prologue and three different colored pens or three highlighters.

With one color, underline all words having to do with love.

With a second color, underline all words having to do with hate or fighting.

With a third color, underline all words having to do with two or pairs.

Once you have completed this activity, please write an analysis of your findings by answering the following question:

In the Prologue, what relationship does Shakespeare establish between love and hate and the number or idea of two? How do his specific word choices illustrate this relationship? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.

41 thoughts on ““…the two hours’ traffic of our stage.””

After delving deeper into the Prologue of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, I noticed an interesting emphasis on three topics in particular, those being love, hate, and the idea of pairs. First, looking at love, we can see the most emphasis put on the main relationship between Romeo and Juliet. William Shakespeare opens this up by saying, “a pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life,” (ll. 6). William Shakespeare makes it immediately apparent what he intends to write about in this Prologue. We learn that these two young people, Romeo and Juliet, will fall in love with each other, however, their ending does not bode well. The love of these two, we learn, is set with the backdrop of their two rival families being completely hostile towards each other. This brings us to the next topic, hate. The two families, the Montagues and the Capulets, have hated each other seemingly since before time itself. They then come to bear arms against each other once again at the time of this play, when a war breaks out. They don’t even try to reason with each other, and only think to do so after their two children commit suicide for love. The third topic discussed is that of pairs. I find this interesting, because it describes the two previous categories instead of a whole new idea. For example, love comes in pairs. Juliet and Romeo make a pair of people, joined by love. The Montagues and the Capulets, who hate each other, are joined by that common feeling of hate. This leads me to believe that pairs also ties in with a union, done here with the previous examples shown. Overall, I did not expect much from this Prologue, however instead of just setting the scene, it provided a much deeper look into the plot.

In the prologue, Shakespeare tells us what the play will be about. He says how two families have an “ancient grudge” and something makes them start to fight again. This something is that two people fall in love, one from each family. “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;” Shakespeare says how the foes have children that are star-crossed which means the stars give them bad luck and they fall in love. They also end up taking their lives. In this text, he also shows a relationship between love and hate. He says how “do with their death bury their parents’ strife” Shakespeare is saying that when Romeo and Juliet kill themselves it ends the families feud with one another. This shows, in a messed up way, love can overcome hate. They loved each other so much that they killed themselves to be together. And by them killing themselves it killed the family feuds. In the prologue, he also mentions twos or pairs quite a bit. “Two households, both alike in dignity…From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;” Quite honestly, I have no idea why he would do this. Maybe because the story revolves around two lovers is why it is so important. Other than that I’m not sure. Hopefully, I can learn tomorrow in class.

In the prologue of Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare, we see continuous motifs of love, hate and pairs. The first of these mentioned in the prologue is pairs, it begins with “Two households…”. The mentioning of the two households is to explain the two families and the premise of Romeo and Juliet. But not only that, pairs are usually the amount that any relationship comes in in the play (that we s learn about so far). Romeo and Juliet are a pair, and so are the two families. But there is a difference between the two of them. The families, as the prologue makes clear to us, hate each other “… from ancient grudge break to new mutiny…” and they have fora long time. The families are in a fight and it is nothing new. This brings us the motif of hate and how a pair or two groups can so deeply hate each other that they lead to letting their kids lead to death over a forbidden love. Finally, the last motif, love. Romeo and Juliet, one of the greatest love stories of all time, and we learn that right away in the prologue. Romeo and Juliet, who are a pair are so deeply in love that they ignore the crazy rules given to them by their parents. Things like hate and love are so powerful that they are capable of blinding people or pairs to the point that something they never meant to happen do. Hate blinded the parents and they didn’t see the pain that they were putting on their kids, eventually this hate led their own kids to their death and maybe without hate, that could’ve been avoided. Love blinded Romeo and Juliet that they ignored their parents so much and it hurt them in the end. Love and hate are powerful things and we wouldn’t be human without them

In the prologue of Romeo and Juliet we see Shakespeare foreshadowing. In this prologue he repeats many things such as two, hatred, and love. Usually when someone repeats something, it means it’s important. This is exactly what was happening, Shakespeare wanted us to listen to the big things. As much as I know Shakespeare, he probably has a deeper meaning behinds the things we don’t realize at first and I am trying to figure it out. After rereading it over and over again, I finally realized it. Romeo and Juliet is about these two lovers who live in a society where their families are enemies even though they want to be lovers. We see hatred, lovers, and two, but most importantly, if you look closely, you can see fate. Your fate is beyond your control and sometimes you just have to let fate take over. What if that’s not the case, maybe Shakespeare was trying to show us how we can’t see beyond but if we look closely, we can help guide our fate. He showed us the obvious but also showed us the less obvious things in which we had to work to see. When we look closely, we see how there are these little things around which can also shape your fate. This can all be proved in many different places of thee prologue. In the first sentence he says the word, “dignity”. After looking at it, I wondered why he would say dignity when dignity means status? Can status mean something other than a social class in this text? In this context can it mean your status as a person and all the good actions you can do? I didn’t know what to think about it but I kept reading and looking very closely at the words and I realized the sentence, “misadventured piteous overthrows.” In class we couldn’t find out what it means but I think it means that their unlucky and sad luck takes over. If this is what it means then its showing how their fate in unlock and they can’t control it but they can do something about it and defy their fate by falling in love. These are the things that I can find so far but i’m sure there is more evidence to support the theory of faith and how Shakespeare sees fate. Hopefully in the near future I will find out more but for now, all we can do it wait. Anyways, besides this idea, the obvious thing shown was love, two, and death. Love is usually associated with two people. When they get married they say, “till death do we part.” This ties in all the main ideas, love, two, and hatred. The idea of fate also ties into love which ties into two and death. Shakespeare connected all these things in which we don’t usually think about and made them the center of his prologue. By doing this he is showing how all these things connect and can be a part of you. To conclude, Shakespeare showed love, fate, two, and death.

In the Prologue of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, he summarizes and foretells the events that will unfold as the play moves on. Love, hate, and the idea of pairs or the number two can often be noticed throughout the text, and it seems like the amazing poet is attempting to establish a relationship between each one. After looking carefully, I’ve noticed that each time the subject of pairs appears, the subject of either love or hate succeeds it. For example, in the lines, “Two households.. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,” he establishes the pair of the families. These two families have hated each other for ages, and caused a great deal of violence. After Shakespeare mentions the number two, hate and violence follows it. Another instance is in the line, “a pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life”. On the verso, star cross’d is defined as thwarted by fate through the malign influence of the stars. Evidently, the two lovers, Romeo and Juliet, are enveloped in evil, violence, and ill fate. In addition, “the fearful passage of their death-mark’d love, and the continuance of their parents’ rage”. Again, a pair of two people who love each other are stricken with hate, along with their parents. From all of this, it seems like Shakespeare is trying to make a point: That wherever there is a pair, there is violence. Wherever there is love, there is violence. I predict that this will be a recurring theme in Romeo and Juliet, but I hope to find out soon.

In the prologue of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare just does an entire synopsis of the play. At first, it was very confusing, but once we started analyzing each line, it became easier to understand. The themes, love and hate are both very important in this poem. Obviously, this poem is about Romeo and Juliet and both of their families, of the same status are feuding with each other. They have only rage towards each other. However, one line says, “from ancient grudge break to new mutiny…” There is hope of a riot that can break this grudge and that is Romeo and Juliet’s love. “Do with their death bury their parent’s strife.” Romeo and Juliet die for their love and ended their parent’s rage for each other. This shows that love is stronger than any hate alive. Also that Romeo and Juliet’s love for each other was so strong that they died for each other.

Another line that confused me was the line, “where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.” I thought maybe it was like the civil war. Two sides from the same country, “cut from the same cloth” fighting against each other for their different beliefs. Like the parents, they obviously have some history between them that has such distinct rage for each other. Also, in my opinion, in the first line, I also thought that dignity could mean pride as well. They both have so much pride and they have to keep true to their dignity so both sides won’t apologize. However, one line says, “from ancient grudge break to new mutiny”……..

If you look in the book on the verso side, it says that dignity is like a social class. However, your meaning is very interesting and makes a lot of sense considering the fact that the cause of Romeo and Juliet’s death is an “ancient grudge”. Overall, good analysis.

After highlighting the parts of the prologue for hate, love, and pairs, I noticed a lot of connections. I have noticed a lot that was about love and pairs. For instance, Shakespeare decides to use a pair of… when he wrote about Romeo and Juliet. “a pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.” (line 6). I do not know whether or not Shakespeare is trying to add a dramatic effect to the prologue to make people more interested, or whether he did this to add more emphasis on Romeo and Juliet indirectly, but whatever it is, it definitely caught my attention. Also, every time Shakespeare even writes the word love, there is a negative adjective right before it. One example of this is “death-marked love.” (line 9) Shakespeare is practically spoiling the whole play because he is already telling his audience that Romeo and Juliet will either figuratively or literally die. Why does he do that? Also, I see a lot of hate mixed with the theme of innocence. For instance, when it says, “where civil blood makes civil hands unclean,” it is referring to “ancient grudge” going into the “hands” of Juliet and Romeo. Not only that, but two and pair by itself are also shown a lot throughout the text. One possibility is that it shows the amount of time the players take to complete the play. “two hours’ traffic.” (line 12) Also, there are TWO families and they are BOTH of the same class and there are TWO fatal loins, Romeo and Juliet, and there are TWO foes. What is interesting is that they describe the families as two households and two foes. I do not really know what that means, but it seems important, so if anyone knows what it means, please tell me.

Nice response! It does seem pretty odd to already said what will happen, but then again, it really catches the attention of the audience. Also, the number two represents partnership, conflict, opposition, and balance.

In the prologue of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, many details and lots of information about the upcoming plot of this tragedy/musical theatre/romance. In reading this prologue, it is evident that there is an emphasis on primarily love and hate, along with the ideas of pairs. First and foremost, Romeo and Juliet can be classified as a romance novel that includes the lovers Romeo and Juliet, “a pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.” The love that Romeo and Juliet are incredibly strong, despite issues within the families. Although the love of Romeo and Juliet seemed inevitable, the hostility between the two rival families of Romeo and Juliet made that difficult. The Montagues and the Capulets, have hated each other for a very long time, resulting in a war breaking out. They don’t even try to compromise with each other, and the only thing to do so after their two children die for the sake of their love. Finally, the topic of pairs is also shown as love coming in pairs in Romeo and Juliet and hate coming in pairs in The Montagues and the Capulets. These pairs show unity and teamwork, which can turn out to be an important moral in the story. Although this was just a prologue, this piece of literature provided lots of insight towards the rest of the story in just a handful of lines. I hope to learn more about Romeo and Juliet in the upcoming days, and their story.

Awesome job!Great analysis of the love and hate concepts of the prologue. I like how you said that the pairs represent unity and teamwork. Great analysis of the love and hate concepts of the prologue. 🙂

What I noticed in the prologue, although it may not be that important, is that there were two households, a pair of lovers, and the play was two hours long. It may just be a coincidence, but I just found that while I was highlighting. In the prologue, Shakespeare says how two people loved each other from two hateful families. “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/ a pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;/ whose misadventured piteous overthrows/ do with their death bury their parents’ strife.” Clearly, the “ancient grudge” between the two families didn’t carry over to Romeo or Juliet. They loved each other even though their families would not except it, and that led to their death. After their death, I would suppose that the families hated each other even more. It doesn’t seem as if they would forgive each other after their children’s deaths. The two families probably blamed each other for the deaths of their relatives. The line “where civil blood makes civil hands unclean” meant that hatred led civil, or civilized, people do things that they normally wouldn’t do. That may mean that because of their hatred towards one another, the two families, excluding Romeo and Juliet, did things that they shouldn’t and wouldn’t do other any other circumstances. I am very excited to learn what was the ancient grudge between the two families is, and why neither Romeo or Juliet decided to love, rather than hate each other.

The Prologue to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is by no means empty. The introduction that we receive provides us with a summary to the entire play, rather than a typical introduction that would leave us pondering the plot. While analyzing the prologue further, it is clear that Shakespeare’s focus is on love, hate, and pairs. All topics are also intertwined with each other to allow us to grasp onto the information without too much confusion. The first topic we are introduced with is pairs. “Two households, both alike in dignity,”(Line.1). The story involves two, or a pair, of families that have long been rivals. For reasons unknown to us, they refuse to be associated with each other. Romeo and Juliet are children of those two families, one in each. “A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;”(Line.6). They had a love for each other that was deemed unacceptable by their parents. It was clear that their love would not work out once the term star-crossed was used. However, Shakespeare goes on to describe their love as death-mark’d. The two are clearly going to experience a downward spiral in their lives as they fall in love for each other, and it appears that both know that their love will never work out. However, they feel a love so strong that they go ahead and follow their heart until they finally take their own lives.

There are two different important pairs of people mentioned in the Prologue of Romeo and Juliett. The first pair is obviously the two lovers themselves. The lovers will end up falling for each other, but their relationship and affection for each other will not end well. In the prologue, it is stated that the two lovers will take their own lives partly because of the rivalry between their two families. The second pairing are the two families who despise each other. They had always hated each other, but in this story, a new problem arises between the two. This causes some innocent people to get hurt in their conflict, and also causes a child from each family to commit suicide. The families fight with each other for a long time, and it seemed like nothing could end their problems between each other except for one thing. Once their children decided to kill themselves, the families decided to stop conflicting with each other. It seems like there will be two different pairings in this story. There may be others, but these two will have the most importance. The two affect each other, and one will ultimately affect the death of the other.

There is a very clear connection between love, hate, and pairs in the prologue.” from forth the fatal a pair of star cross’d lovers take their life;”(Prologue, Act I Romeo and Juliet)I think that the message being portrayed in this instance, is that love is not possible without hate, that if one lives in love there will be times of hate that the Pair must work through together. At a glance, it may seem that one may avoid this hat by living alone, but I would argue not. It is human nature to grow jealous when one has less than another; jealousy grows into hate, and then you have without a proper solution, hate. Therefore, in my opinion, Shakespeare implies that one may not live without hate. He also implies that there are different types of pairs. Bad pairs hate and fight constantly without a temporary solution, while good pairs still feel hate but eventually overcome it. This relationship is demonstrated by his specific words, because he associates both of these with pairs, occasionally in the same sentence. Although some might state that this could just be correlation and not causation, we see that not to be the truth, as these emotions are not just directed towards life or people in general, directed towards one specific person.

When reading the prologue of Romeo and Juliet for the first time, I was quite surprised. I thought that the prologue would set the scene and mood, but it tells everyone what is going to happen! Although many people are familiar with the story today, people during Shakespeare’s time didn’t. Why did Shakespeare decide to reveal the ending? After much thought, I have created an idea, or theory: Shakespeare purposely uses the word “star-crossed”. The stars are crossed, and it is fate for Romeo and Juliet to die. Telling the audience beforehand is like knowing your fate. I am not quite sure how to explain this, but the whole point of Shakespeare telling the whole story, relates to the motif or idea of “fate”. The audience knows what it going to happen because it is fate for it to happen. Their deaths are written in permanent marker.
Love is clearly a motif. Romeo and Juliet are madly in love, but are held back from their families’ rivalry. However, their love leads them to their death. What is that supposed to mean?
“Do with their death, bury their parents’ strife.” After the death of Romeo and Juliet, the “ancient grudge” or conflict, starts to die down. Conflict representing hate, and Romeo and Juliet representing love, love wins. With the death of Romeo and Juliet, there is no conflict anymore. Even though the conflict between the two families were almost impossible to end, love was able to win, and end it. “Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,”. The story of Romeo and Juliet is a fight between love and hate, and in the prologue, the audience is told that love wins in the end. It tells the message that love will always triumph, even if love leads to death.

After reading the prologue to Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare three particular elements stood out. Those elements were love, hate, and pairs. Love is shown in the prologue in two separate lines. The first line is “a pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;” this line tells us in advance that both Romeo and Juliet will commit suicide. The next line that discusses love is, “the fearful passage of their death-mark’d love…” Those lines told us the result of the suicide. Out of the three major topics of the prologue, hate and fighting have the greatest roles. There are multiple sentences that involve hate and fighting and if love tells us the solution then hate tells us the conflict. Words and phrases involving pairs also have a large recurrence in the prologue. The comments about pairs tell who is performing the conflict and compromise. The three elements love, hate, and pairs together form the information that the prologue is trying to tell us. Based on that, a summary of what the prologue is saying is “Our play is about, two equal status families, in Verona, Italy; that have always held animosity towards each other, but that ends when a child in either family commits suicide because of love towards the other child.” It is interesting how Shakespeare can fit an entire story into just three simple motifs (or themes-we don’t know yet) of love, hate and pairs.

oday we began “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare. We only got to read a little bit of the prologue, but so far we know the basic story. There are these two high class families that hate each other , one with a son- Romeo, and one with a daughter- Juliet. Romeo and Juliet fall in love, causing issues more between the families, and the two end up committing suicide. So far we have three basic themes or motifs, love, hate, and twos or pairs. We first see pairs with the two families or “households”. And then we see it with Romeo and Juliet. Each one of these pairs has an overarching idea of either love or hate. The families have hate for one another and Romeo and Juliet have love. Romeo and Juliet end up dying because of the love that is being forbidden by their family’s hatred for each other. I think this story will show two things, how society can have a huge impact on our life, and how love and hate can change someone’s life. In this story the society for Romeo and Juliet is their families. With the hatred for their families holding them back, their lives were changed. Imagine if their families were supportive of their relationship, or if they didn’t even love each other at all. Neither of them would have died at such a young age. I think that seeing exact details of the struggle that Romeo and Juliet went through will be interesting, and will make us thankful that we don’t live in their society.

I really think we should finish going over the prologue in class tomorrow, because over than a third of this just barely made sense to me, if at all. Either way, I’ll do my best.

The prologue of Romeo and Juliet mainly talks about love and hate (I acknowledge that it talked about couples too, but I don’t really know how that fits in). Most of the tone that is set when love is mentioned is misfortune and sadness. You can tell by the descriptions of Romeo and Juliet. “A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life,” (l. 6, p. 7). When it says “star-cross’d,” it really means unlucky. Like the stars weren’t aligned for their love, and it was doomed to fail from the beginning. Also, “whose misadventured piteous overthrows / Do with their death bury their parents’ strife,” (ll. 7-8, p. 7). Where it says “misadventured piteous overthrows,” by misadventured we said in class it had to be unlucky. But in this case misadventured is a noun, while unlucky is an adjective, so that doesn’t work. (You can tell it’s a noun because of the possessive “whose” that came before it.) It really means misfortune. The rest of the line most probably means something like “whose misfortune sadness takes advantage of,” which definitely makes sense, and makes the play seem even more tragic. Speaking of which, in the next line we learn that they both kill themselves, essentially ending their parents’ feud. Now here’s where it gets interesting, because this is the point where we see love starting to cross over to the theme of hate.

A lot of hatred is conveyed in the prologue. These two families who have held a grudge against the other for years are part of the main focus of the play. These families have two children, Romeo and Juliet, one from each family. Romeo and Juliet both fall in love, but their parents will not have it. This opens old wounds and the two families are at it again. “From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, / Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. / From forth the fatal loins of these two foes / A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life,” (ll. 3-6, p. 7). So we discover that these two families hated each other for a long time. And notice, in line 6, the words “fatal loins of these two foes.” It might sound like these two children are deadly, but it is really saying that these to children are victims of an early death. Additionally, the word “foes” is used to accentuate the animosity between the two families. “Do with their death bury their parents’ strife,” (l. 8, p. 7). In the end, Romeo and Juliet taking their lives is the last straw. These two families make up over the fact that their children suicided together. And, in the end, love trumps hate. That seems to be what Shakespeare is ultimately saying with this play. Love can stop a century’s worth of hatred. And it’s only this final act of love that’s powerful enough to show these families that it’s time to stop fighting.

Like I said before, I don’t really know anything about the couples, so I’m gonna end here. I really think we should finish going over it and discuss the blogs in class because I need some clarification on how the whole “couples” thing fits in, and I’m sure other people do, too.

I certainly agree with you, Arjun. I hope that we continue to analyze the prologue because it has so much substance to it. I like how you really looked into the line about the “misadventure piteous overthrows,” and how it is linked to the parents feud. I really liked how you connected to romance between the children to the hatred between the parents. Well done!

Shakespeare uses a very particular word choice. Shakespeare uses words to describe the feelings of love between Romeo and Juliet, and hatred between the families themselves. The story is between two families, and the romance is shared between the two children. Each are from the families. Shakespeare says words like “Two households, both alike in dignity…” “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star cross’d lovers take their life;..” and, “Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;” There are two families, two lovers, and the story will be presented in two hours. To describe the hatred between the families, Shakespeare uses words such as “ancient grudge,” “mutiny,” “civil blood makes civil hands unclean,” “two foes,” “parents’ strife,” and “parents’ rage.” To summarize what all of these words mean in order, Shakespeare is saying that the family has had a grudge against each other for years, these seemingly good people have committed their own crimes, so to speak; they are two enemies, and the parents of the lovers are going through a bitter disagreement, and they are angry about their children’ romance. Shakespeare uses beautiful words to describe the love between Romeo and Juliet. He uses “a pair of star cross’d lovers,” and “fair.” Shakespeare gets his point across very clearly with the star cross’d lovers line. This line perfectly describes the romance between Romeo and Juliet, and the audience feels a pang of sympathy knowing that the romance was never meant to be in the stars. Shakespeare doesn’t need players to use emotions to portray the tragedy. His word choice alone reads clearly what he is trying to say.

In the prologue, at first we did not really understand it until we thoroughly analyzed it. The story tells of the view of two children that descended from two families within the same status in Verona. They loved each other, but alas, the grudge contained between the two families, which turned into “war” between the two households, refuses their love. To try to end the feud, they took their own lives, which did succeed, as the two families made peace to grieve of the mistake they had made. It was truly a tragedy. I believe what Shakespeare is trying to establish is that true love cannot be stopped by hatred. Out of all the hatred spread between the two families, love has sprouted between two of their children, destined to hate each other but took the path of love. As for the significance of two or a pair, it has a lot of reasons. Two apparently symbolizes partnership, and is the number of balance, conflict, and opposition. Everything was out of balance until Romeo and Juliet fixed and made it at peace. There are also two families who oppose each other and have conflicts with each other, and Romeo and Juliet had some conflicts with their family for loving each other. Romeo and Juliet is so far a really interesting play.

In the prologue of Romeo and Juliet by the bard himself, William Shakespeare, the contrast of love being overpowered by hate seems to be talked about a lot. The text states, “The fearful passage of their death-marked love and the continuance of their parents’ rage, which, but their children’s end, naught could remove..” Romeo and Juliet seemed to have loved each other. They were young, and wanted to rebel against their parents opinions to be with their true love. It sets the scene of the perfect love story, but unfortunately all the hatred ruined the love. This is clearly expressed through these words, and their story truly makes me upset. My favorite line from the prologue that clearly expresses the idea of two is, “A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life, whose misadventured piteous overthrows woth with their death bury their parents’ strife.” Using the word “pair,” Shakespeare implies that they are perfect together, yet their love is impossible because of the hate between their families. I also think it is very interesting how shakespeare used the expression star-crossed. because those who believe in astrology claim that the stars control human destiny. William Shakespeare used the phrase to describe the lovers in Romeo and Juliet. It is almost like the stars are working against their relationship. Romeo and Juliet are still so young, and don’t know how the relationship will end, which is the saddest part. I look forward to reading the rest of this beautiful script.

By going threw and highlighting it is very clear as to what Shakespeare is going to write about. Before I saw the prologue as a foreshadowing and something to set the setting, but it is actually more of a story. Although it is still setting the setting, it tells of the story of the Montaques and the Capulets and of the two lovers that kill themselves.

Firstly comes love. The love in this story is differnet from other love because in this story, the love should not exist, and in the end fails to keep on existing. Juliet and Romeo should never have loved eachother in the first place, and yethe they do. But this isn’t a common story of the very high women and then he good looking lowly man who fall on love even then he hough it is socially unacceptable. No, instead they are the same socially speaking, but their families are the problem. Which brings us to the next part of this story, war and hatred. The Montaques and Capulets have had a grudge for forever, even though we are not sure why, and it probebly doesn’t matter anymore. It’s probebly one of those things that happened 200 years ago when a Capulet accused a Montaque of stealing a sheep because they were competing at the market, but the Montaque says that they didn’t do it, so now they are both angry. And now, for some reason the war has been sparked again. And now, the normally civilized high class people are killing the others in a war (or it seems that way with the quote “…from civil blood makes civil hands unclean.). And this while time we have also been talking about something else, something more broad, and less complex. Doubles. It seems like doubles are everywhere in life, and in the story. There are parents, which there are normally two of, and there are the two households probably still angry at eachother for something stupid, and there are the lovers. The lovers that are doomed to never love again, because their families are so messed up, and they end up killing themselves.

All in all, this prologue actually meant more then what you would first think, and it probably could mean even more if you looked even closer at it.

The prologue to Romeon and Juliet serves as a summary of the whole show. In the prologue the themes of the play are outlined for the reader/audience. Shakespeare is clearly trying to get across the themes of the power of love and rage, and how the two can overlap very often. He’s also trying to get across that the only way to truly overcome prejudice and hate is the ought love. Shakespeare refers to Romeo and Juliet’s love as “death mark’d”. He also says “do with their death bury their parents strife.” Essentially, the only way the way the two households would ever reconcile was if something was taken to the extreme. Romeo and Juliet never got a fighting chance but it was their self sacrifice that showed their parents how to love. I can infer based on the content of the prologue that the families learned that if their children can overcome the prejudice enstilled in them from birth, that as adults they should be able to overcome those same prejudices. Romeo and Juliets fated was sealed from the beginning of their romance and their sacrifice was necessary to prevent anyone from suffering the way they did in the future

While delving further into Romeo and Juliet, you can see three distinct recurring themes: love, hatred, and pairs. The Prologue begins with, “Two households, both alike in dignity,” to set the scene. It goes on to describe how these two families are rivals, and how their hatred for one another makes good people do terrible things. The other pair described is that of Romeo and Juliet themselves. They are depicted as “star-crossed lovers” because it has been written in the stars, so to speak, that they aren’t meant to be. For this reason, they eventually both take their lives, burying their parents’ conflict in the process. I’m still not too sure what “Whose misadventured piteous overthrows” means, though I know that misadventured means unlucky in this context and piteous is sorrowful. As the Prologue goes on, it says the two lovers’ “death-marked love / And the continuance of their parents’ rage” is what the rest of the play is about. However, I’m not sure if their deaths did get rid of the fighting between the two families or not, because it says it did at first, but now it’s saying that it continued on. At the end, it breaks the fourth-wall, or the invisible barrier between the actors and the audience, as it describes how everything already said is what the whole play is about. It’s basically the 1500s’ version of spoilers, which seems kind of annoying, but it’s there anyway. Overall, the three themes come up quite a lot, and they often overlap each other as well. They give a sense of connectedness to the whole Prologue, as you can trace them back and forth throughout the story.

In the prologue of Romeo and Juliet the themes of love hate and pairs are often apparent. He shows this by talking mainly about two pairs. The Capulets and the Montagues and Romeo and Juliet. One of which is a pair of hat and the other a pair of love that overcomes this hate. The prologue does this by showing how much of a grudge these families have, yet also showing that they are very alike.Two households, both alike in dignity,… from ancient grudge break to new mutiny…” After this Shakespeare tells us about Romeo and Juliet and how their love is “star crossed” which means that there is no possible way for them to be with one another. As a result this pair comes together to commit suicide. However this suicide was only for the sole reason of love. As a result their families finally put aside their fude “Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.” Since they finally had something to come together by which was their children’s death they did. Although this may be a tragedy it does show how love can overcome hate

The prologue of Romeo and Juliet is a sonnet that seemingly summarizes the major points of the play. This to me illustrates how plays were, more than anything, about the emotion and passion that goes into the parts when acting them. The prologue basically spoiled the entire story, defeating the purpose if their play was about the story. And more, the dramatic story line leaves much opportunity to act out emotions. But the prologue itself also has an interesting structure. It compares the ideas of love and hate in a manner such that love appears to be the only way to resolve hate. There is a theme of duality, with two families, two lovers, and two dramatic emotions: of love and hate, and how they clash. The two families have a feud with each other, and have had it since practically ancient times. There are two who love each other in each family, though, and because of the dispute are forced to take their lives, and through this act resolve the dispute. In its own tragic way, love triumphed over hate. Hate was the cause and was demolished because of it.

When reading and analyzing the prologue, I find that, withing the parameters of these words, the meaning of the number two is given several meanings, pertaining to the motifs of love or hate or rivalries and balance. The two also symbolizes a relationship, such as Romeo and Juliet’s. This of course, has another side to it. A double-edged sword one might say. The two against each other, butting heads, in a rivalry. It also shows the balance and peace. How with the destiny and fate of the two lovers’ death, peace was restored again between the two families. I find it very interesting and such a great point.